The Joviality of Mercenaries by David Fitton

They can’t drive tanks through the streets

It would be too unsettling for the masses

whatever you do don’t wake them

So they drive those big orange trucks.

with “the Chipper” behind them

That’s the private concern;

The Park service’s is green and

water is white, electric yellow.

All big and strong and inspiring

venom in me, almost as much

as the endless stream down 35^th

individual wills and masked choice in cars.

Me counting to calm down,

paying attention to my son,

Him: waving joyously to them.

Me:

Churning, seething, a silent chant

You drop dead, and You don’t kill me

Pay attention,

This way son,

No, No, No

The hooting old men in buckets

whipping through branches with chainsaws

teaching the apprentices: the objectives:

The yellow tape: a perimeter established.

Then move in for the kill.

Later A beer and talk of women:

Perhaps a young mother

out walking her child

around the barricades.

Is she innocent? Or does the cell phone on her ear

make them think of phone sex?

The delight of boys who from an early age

knew their calling, to bully, to control, and a desire for action

To get the bad guys.

But never to think they are the bad guys

Make a buck. And Drive to do it.

We are the bad guys.

What of all those innocent squirrels’ homes?

No Jesus, the foxes have long ago been displaced

and these birds don’t have there nests.

But I rest my head on starched white pillows.

But alas, you say, I give them too much power.

thus happy morons are stronger than one sad poet.